VA, DoD look to seamlessly integrate EHRs by 2017

Laura Pedulli | | Health Exec | EMR/EHR

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is working to achieve seamless integration of its VistA EHR with the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) separate system by 2017, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki told Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs during its FY 2015 budget hearing.

The agencies are requesting $269 million “to help achieve our shared goal of providing the best possible support for service members and veterans,” according to Shinseki’s testimony.

In the near-term, he said the two agencies are working to integrate their separate platforms and private provider health data, as well as modernize the software supporting DoD and VA clinicians.

“Together, these two goals will help to create an environment in which clinicians and patients from both departments are able to share current and future healthcare information for continuity of care and improved treatment,” according to the testimony. “As we strive to build on our successful history of health data sharing and collaboration, we understand our EHR modernization efforts are complicated, dynamic and multi-facted.”

Read Shinseki’s testimony here.

 

 

Laura Pedulli

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